[MUD-Dev] Re: WIRED: Kilers have more fun

[Marian Griffith]

On Tue 23 Jun, Mike Sellers wrote:

> At 11:11 PM 6/22/98 -0700, John Bertoglio wrote:

> No you see -- that's precisely my point.  We will never have "perfect code"
> like this.  Nor will a game be enjoyable for long if it's up to the
> GMs/sysops/etc to zap people from on high.  This is why I called it
> *social* engineering.  We can't create code to make sure that no one annoys
> anyone else, but we *can* create code to make sure that the players can
> create their own social mechanisms to deal with such situations.  We can't
> provide technological or central-business-oriented solutions to what are
> inherently distributed social issues.  

True that you can not (entirely) force people to play nice  by making it
impossible  to be anything else.  However providing mechanisms for other
players to deal with the social misfits 'on their own terms' plays right
into their hands.  You made the game  which was intented a nice roleplay
environment into something that fits the killers. Even players who don't
want to fight others are forced to,  because  that is the only way there
is for them to protect themselves. So in a sense the killers have won.

Not a nice dilemma.

Marian
--
Yes - at last - You. I Choose you. Out of all the world,
out of all the seeking, I have found you, young sister of
my heart! You are mine and I am yours - and never again
will there be loneliness ...

Rolan Choosing Talia,
Arrows of the Queen, by Mercedes Lackey